I don't care, said Pierre. The titles are already widely associated with the games and rebranding would just cause unneeded confusion.

But now's the time to bite the bullet, make the switch and don't look back! just like FFVII did.While we're on the subject of names where do you guys stand, Resident Evil or Biohazard?.

They didn't name it Final Fantasy IV though.

As for the name, obviously Resident Evil, at least when it comes to regular releases. It's what it's called around here. I only call Japan-only titles "Biohazard", since they don't have any official translation. For example, Biohazard Gaiden, being an unreleased title, is a completely different game from the GBC Resident Evil Gaiden. This way I can differentiate between different versions. So basically I go for both, but in a different context.

I hope they do something similar with RE2 with what they did with RE1. What I mean is they took RE1 and made it bigger and better without changing anything what people liked about it. Hopefully Capcom will take to heart how disappointed everyone was with 6 after they failed to learn why nobody liked 5, and change back to the formula that worked(however, based on Revelations, I'm not holding my breath).

I find it odd that AAA companies have trouble figuring out why Slenderman and 5 Nights at Freddies are so scary and can't seem to nail down why they worked even though you can stop anyone on the street and they can tell you the reason. In a horror game, you need the enemy to be something that should be avoided. RE2 was good because combat was clunky, difficult, and most of the time not worth it but at the same time the zombies you didn't want to fight posed a threat, but taking them down might not leave you with enough ammo to take down a licker. And of course there was the tyrant, which was all sorts of fun.

In RE4 the enemies were still a threat and there was a fair amount of puzzles to solve, by RE6 a pistol shot to the legs and a roundhouse kick took pretty much every enemy down.

I guess the point I'm getting at is everyone is excited about a RE2 remake that won't actually be a remake. I'll put money that they will continue to make it into a shooter and it will continue to be less scary than a kitten.

Resident Evil is over, enjoy Resident Evil 2 as it is because a remake will just be a boring shooter that will be played and forgotten about within the month(just like RE6).

Jumpscares. Lots and lots of jumpscares. I'd rather play an actually scary game.

As for the "avoiding combat in RE2", there's more ammo to be found in that game than there are enemies to kill. I don't think I've ever run out of ammo and I tend to shoot things more than avoid them.

You'd think, but jumpscares aren't very scary if you aren't already on the edge of your seat, if you aren't already frightened out of your mind then jump scares don't work very well. As we learned in RE5, if you're not scared then jump scares are closer to wack-a-mole than horror. No, FNaF and SM set up their jump scares by putting you into a mood in which jump scares work.

In FNaF it makes out like the monsters are the danger, but in reality the fear comes from not understanding where you are. Supposedly the monsters are roaming but every time you find them in camera they blend into the background, unmoving and seeming like a perfectly normal part of the room, but you know the monsters are scary, so is the room really safe? Plus a room without a monster becomes more scary than a room with one. When you see a monster then you know where it is, when you don't, then it hits you, as you scroll through the rooms trying to find the monster you realize that your knowledge of the place you are is fleeting. FNaF convinces you that the entire restaurant is your enemy, like all of the rooms are working against you to hide the monsters that are out to get you.

In SM they take a different approach. You are alone in what appears to be a forest, but with the narrow flashlight you are never able to truly take in your surroundings all at once. In other words, your situational awareness is severely limited, and as you attempt to grasp what is going on around you, a strange creature hunts you. So, now you're placed in a hunting ground you know very little about with a hunter that you perceive as not only knowing more than you but also being able to limit your vision even more. As simply trying to track him leads to your death. You're entirely alone on a hunting ground you know very little about against a hunter you know nothing about.

RE3 was scary because throughout the entire game you are scared of running into the Nemesis unprepared(at least on your first or second playthrough), every time you entered a room you think "will he jump out as me this time?" They even set up your 2nd encounter inside the police station to trigger after you've entered the room several times, so that places you in the midset that even in rooms you've been to, where you would think you're safe, you aren't.

In more recent AAA "horror" games you're pretty much top dog. You are the hunter and the poor zombies are your prey. You simply can't invoke fear when you put the player in that role. RE4 was entertaining, but it wasn't scary. RE5 wasn't scary and wasn't entertaining. And RE6 is more boring with tons of QTEs and a machine gun.

You think when the dogs jump into the east hallway during the REmake would be nearly as scary in RE6? No, because the player is the god of death in RE6 and the dogs are simply more victims. But it is scary in the REmake because the game sets up an atmosphere in which it seems like the mansion itself is the players enemy, the zombies are just one of the tools the mansion uses to get in your head. When you first walk through the hall the glass breaks a bit, so you know there is an enemy that might or might not be in the room, but you don't know what it is and when or if it will appear. Then by the time you've gotten into a false sense of security the dogs jump in.

In short, it isn't the monster, it's the environment that you set the player in that makes the game scary, and setting the player into an environment that doesn't seem hostile or scary results in any attempt to scare them falling flat.

That is nice and all but it's all completely subjective. I've never found Slender or FNAF scary. Well, Slender a bit before I actually played it myself, after which it was just... meh. I've been more scared of Lavender Town from Pokémon than those games combined. To iterate, am I scared? No. Do I get startled when something suddenly gets slapped on the screen with loud noises? Yes. Does that make me actually scared? Not really, no. It's the equivalent of watching a toaster not knowing when it goes pop, at least to me.

Yes, I do agree, Nemesis was a scary monster. Yet I still think the scariest RE game ever was Dead Aim (or at least the ship part of it), mostly because the only actually terrifying thing in RE3 was Nemesis himself and he wasn't on your ass 24/7. 3's still my favorite, though.

I'm not even claiming to be someone who doesn't get scared in games. I do. I still quite often pause a game of Silent Hill just to take a breather. Some games just don't do it for me and most of the RE series hasn't felt scary after growing up. They are fun but not scary.

As for your opinion on RE4/5/6, I happen to have a different one. I thought RE4 was scary, back when I was 15, and I thoroughly enjoyed 5 and 6. Beaten both multiple times, like most other titles in the series. I do agree about the QTEs though, gaming industry in general should drop that shit. I'm looking at you, retarded Krauser knife fight.

VitalSigns wrote:

In short, it isn't the monster, it's the environment that you set the player in that makes the game scary, and setting the player into an environment that doesn't seem hostile or scary results in any attempt to scare them falling flat.

I thoroughly agree. That's why I play Silent Hill when I want to play a scary game. RE I play for the fun of it.

I think regardless of our differences, we do seem to be on the same page with the overly verbose point I was trying to get at, namely the world around you, not just the monsters, is what make a game scary. And AAA games are too quick to put all those fancy graphics on display instead of keeping the player in the dark as to what is going on around him, so you lose the ability to lure the player into a sense that the very environment itself is where the fear is coming from.

EDIT: I think the key points we can make are:

-You want to put the player in alone in an hostile environment, and not just an environment full of hostile enemies, but where the environment itself is the enemy, so that he never feels truly safe.

-You have to find a balance between completely defenseless and thor, if you can't get perfectly even then lean more towards your defenses having questionable reliability.

-Jump scares are useful, but they shouldn't be the only thing you rely on to scare people.

-Don't let your game revolve around being scary, a game should have gameplay, the horror aspect should be something that haunts the player as he tries to complete the tasks.

-Have a win condition and let the player know that he can win the game, waiting for an inevitable gameover doesn't give the player much motivation to play.

-Have a good story, often overlooked, this aspect allows the player to get immersed in the game and actually identify with the character.

-Most importantly, always remember that the human imagination is far more powerful and convincing than anything you can actually create, and the game should be designed around letting the person imagine the creatures prowling in the darkness. Once the person sees the threat the scary aspect does tends to go down. Seek to create the monster under the bed.

For a new horror title I agree on all points. I so wish Silent Hills had been a thing... With RE, though, we are kinda at the point where there really isn't that much to keep the players in the dark from. For RE2 remake though, I would like to see it getting the same treatment as the first one. Keep it the same but with better graphics and more content. Pretty sure that's what everyone wants.

VitalSigns wrote:

AAA games are too quick to put all those fancy graphics on display instead of keeping the player in the dark as to what is going on around him, so you lose the ability to lure the player into a sense that the very environment itself is where the fear is coming from.

Just, for the love of all that is holy, don't do what Evil Within did. The game kept the player so deep in the dark I hardly saw anything good in it and my interest for the story it was keeping from me kept waning every minute the same way everyone's anger kept building up towards Helena in RE6 for the same reasons.

For a new horror title I agree on all points. I so wish Silent Hills had been a thing... With RE, though, we are kinda at the point where there really isn't that much to keep the players in the dark from. For RE2 remake though, I would like to see it getting the same treatment as the first one. Keep it the same but with better graphics and more content. Pretty sure that's what everyone wants.

Probably, I think actually making RE2 scary wouldn't be a bad idea. Speaking of ideas, I think a game company like Capcom should have more than enough money to have a sit down with a psychologist about what actually scares people because they clearly have no idea.

Mass Distraction wrote:

Just, for the love of all that is holy, don't do what Evil Within did. The game kept the player so deep in the dark I hardly saw anything good in it and my interest for the story it was keeping from me kept waning every minute the same way everyone's anger kept building up towards Helena in RE6 for the same reasons.

What I mean by dark isn't actual darkness and I really dislike when games take that route(see Doom 3). What I mean is keep an element of mystery, the more the player understands about the monsters and the world around him the less scary they become. In Silent Hill 2 they kept very tight lipped on the nature of the town and why it has monsters. In Resident Evil they make sure you know within the first few hours of the game that you know everything that you need to know in order to kill any sort of apprehension on the part of the player.

For a new horror title I agree on all points. I so wish Silent Hills had been a thing... With RE, though, we are kinda at the point where there really isn't that much to keep the players in the dark from. For RE2 remake though, I would like to see it getting the same treatment as the first one. Keep it the same but with better graphics and more content. Pretty sure that's what everyone wants.

Probably, I think actually making RE2 scary wouldn't be a bad idea. Speaking of ideas, I think a game company like Capcom should have more than enough money to have a sit down with a psychologist about what actually scares people because they clearly have no idea.

I wouldn't mind scary elements either. I didn't find the first remake particularly scary but apparently a lot of people did. And to its credit, it really is a way more dark and gruesome game than the original with a more terrifying atmosphere. I did get seriously anxious during the part where the shark tries to get through the glass to you. I hate water. Still, I don't think Capcom should push RE towards the psychological horror path, it's a game series that has always based its monsters on science.

VitalSigns wrote:

Mass Distraction wrote:

Just, for the love of all that is holy, don't do what Evil Within did. The game kept the player so deep in the dark I hardly saw anything good in it and my interest for the story it was keeping from me kept waning every minute the same way everyone's anger kept building up towards Helena in RE6 for the same reasons.

What I mean by dark isn't actual darkness and I really dislike when games take that route(see Doom 3). What I mean is keep an element of mystery, the more the player understands about the monsters and the world around him the less scary they become. In Silent Hill 2 they kept very tight lipped on the nature of the town and why it has monsters. In Resident Evil they make sure you know within the first few hours of the game that you know everything that you need to know in order to kill any sort of apprehension on the part of the player.

Yeah I know what you meant. What I meant was that Evil Within's story was poop because about 80% of the time you had no idea why you are doing any of the things the game tells you to or what was going on. See the reason why I used Helena as my example.

As for RE, that's what I meant by saying "we are kinda at the point where there really isn't that much to keep the players in the dark from". The characters know what's going on. The closest we have come recently to a situation where the player character is completely clueless on what's going on is Revelations 2 (at least from Claire, Moira and Natalia's point of view). That game I think also did a fantastic job on keeping its secrets from the player for a good while but still giving them reasons to continue on, something that Evil Within completely failed to do.